I opened my personal banking app on the laptop.

I had a separate savings account set aside for a vehicle upgrade.

For two years I’d put away a hundred dollars every paycheck.

I’d built that fund by picking up extra weekend shifts before the deployment.

I meant to buy a used silver pickup once this rotation was over.

I’d already chosen the exact model and visited a dealership in Oak Ridge the spring before.

The balance stood at three thousand eight hundred dollars.